Aust search finds no sign of missing jet
2:19

Every angle we've seen on MH370
2:02

As it has unfolded, the mystery of missing flight MH370 and the incredible twists and turns in world news coverage so far

news.com.au

21 Mar 2014

News

A CATASTROPHIC loss of oxygen or deadly fumes could have turned flight MH370 into a so-called zombie plane, knocking the passengers and crew unconscious as the aircraft flew on autopilot until it ran out of fuel.

The chilling theory emerged yesterday as five long-range reconnaissance aircraft and six ships headed to the latest search area, 2500km south- west of Perth, in an expanse of the southern Indian Ocean so remote that it is far from shipping lanes.

As Australia led the most difficult recovery effort in aviation history, there was no sign late last night that any of the debris photographed by a US satellite — deemed the “best lead” in the mystery which has gripped the world for the past 14 days — had been spotted again.

A Royal Australian Air Force P3 Orion takes off from Pearce air base to recommence a search for possible debris.Source: Getty Images

The "best lead we have" in the search for the missing Malaysian passenger jet.Source: AFP

A satellite link technician monitors a live television news cross from the Pearce RAAF base on March 20, 2014 in Perth, Australia.Source: Getty Images

'Large debris field'

OCEAN expert Dr Robin Beaman, of James Cook University, says debris could have been carried hundreds of kilometres since the satellite images were captured on March 16.

“The currents are drifting at one or two nautical miles per hour, so it certainly makes sense that it could have drifted several hundred miles by now,” Dr Beaman said.

“There’d be parts of the plane that could float for some time, but certainly not indefinitely. Eventually parts like that will become waterlogged and sink to the sea floor, so it’s time critical.”

He said every minute of the search was crucial.

Some aviation experts say that if the debris was from flight MH370, it supported the theory the jetliner had suffered catastrophic decompression which had not given the 12 pilots and crew and the 227 passengers time to don oxygen masks.

They argue the pilots may have tried to turn the aircraft before they were knocked out, leaving it to continue for seven hours before the fuel ran out and the jet crashed into the ocean.

It is called the “zombie syndrome”, a long, silent flight of the dead.

“Hypoxia is the simple explanation,” one senior Australian aviation expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

“When the brain loses oxygen, you lose the ability to think and move properly.”

But Qantas Boeing 747 pilot Adam Susz said pilots had their masks next to their seats and could put them on in five seconds. “We practice it all the time,” said Capt Susz, spokesman for the Australian and International Pilots Association.

'No accident'

AN aviation expert is certain what happened to MH370 wasn’t an accident — and the evidence pointed to the plane’s crew being involved.Neil Hansford, chairman of Strategic Aviation Solutions, said: “I think it’s been put there either by one of the crew or both, and they’ve picked an area where the aircraft won’t be found.“This was a crew-related incident. It wasn’t a catastrophic explosion. It wasn’t hit by military ordnance.”He said the near full tank of fuel with 117,00 litres instead of the 45 per cent required to fly to Beijing, was an indicator it was not an accident.

He said that commercial aircraft had so many back-up systems that “there is no logical explanation for what may have happened”.

The Australian Navy’s second-largest ship, the HMAS Success, was steaming southwest from Perth, expected to arrive in the area today. Captain Allison Norris said via satellite phone her ship and its 220-strong crew were ready for any challenge.

With water depths of up to 5km, any recovery of the wreckage and its crucial black boxes will be a huge challenge. The corrosion-resistant boxes, which are actually bright orange, are typically in the tail of the plane and would reveal both the technical data and the last conversations in the cockpit.

The debris, if it is from the missing flight, could have drifted more than 500km from the crash site in the world’s most treacherous seas, Perth oceanographer Chari Pattiaratchi said.

The HMAS Success will meet up with the Norwegian car carrier Höegh St Petersburg, which was the first ship on the area. Its 19 crew members had been on deck 24 hours a day with searchlights and torches, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said from Papua New Guinea yesterday.

“It is about the most inaccessible spot you could imagine on the face of the Earth but we owe it to the families,” he said.

From the cockpit of a Hercules

FROM the cockpit of the RAAF Hercules, there is nothing but a vast, seemingly endless expanse of sapphire blue.

A lonely blue sky merges with an equally empty Indian Ocean, devoid of life or land or anything to break the monotony from horizon to horizon, as far as the eye can see. This vast swathe of ocean between the coast of Western Australia and South Africa is one of the most remote parts of the planet, 3000m deep, and broken only by whitecaps.

This ocean is hostile. It makes you feel utterly insignificant. And it is the terrain facing an international search force including three RAAF crews and a US and a New Zealand aircraft .

Hope and fear

FAMILIES are torn in two about the “debris” being those ofthat could be from the missing plane.

Selamat Omar, the father of one of the passengers said: “I was hoping it was a hijack because then there will be a big hope my son is safe. Now that hope is dashed.”

Others are hoping the discovery will be the first step to bringing closure.

In China, lawyers are lining up to pursue legal action, which some have estimated could be between $1 million to $10 million per passenger.

But relatives have been told litigation or out-of-court settlements can take many years. “If you don’t have an attorney, you are facing the world’s most well-funded defendants,” said Keke Feng, whose firm is representing Chinese victims of the Asiana plane crash last yearpossible

Hercules C-130 pilot Flight LT Conan Brett concedes that finding a downed jet here is like looking for a “needle in a haystack”.

The Daily Telegraph was aboard the 10-hour flight on Thursday for an insider’s look at the hunt to solve the jetliner ‘s disappearance.

Flt Lt Brett, who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said his crew were doing everything possible to assist the Australian Maritime Safety Authority and find either survivors or wreckage. “If we can help, even in a small way, to find answers, that would be exceptional,” the 33-year-old RAAF Squadron 37 pilot from Sydney said.

The Hercules was tasked to fly 3,200km to the search area, drop two “self-locating data marker buoys”, turn around and fly home. The buoys, normally used to detect submarines, are beaming data and drift patterns to AMSA via satellite, helping narrow the search area from a huge 305,000sqkm grid.

Ironically, aboard the Hercules we had no clue that a US Navy Poseidon was diverted to check satellite imagery of floating objects described as a “credible lead” by AMSA.

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